Turin Bicycles Closes Its Doors After 51 Years in Denver

Alan Wonderful, the founding father of Turin Bicycles in Denver, fell in love with European light-weight bikes early on. “My pals and I explored the world on our bikes,” Wonderful says. “There’s a second if you get on the market, on high quality bike, the place the bike disappears, and it’s simply you flying via the air.” So getting a job at Chicago’s Turin Bicycles, one of many first within the U.S. to import high-end bike components from European distributors within the Sixties, was a no brainer for the 22-year-old bike lover.

At Wonderful’s suggestion, Turin expanded to Denver in 1971, bringing the then-humble cow-town one thing its small-but-devoted group of significant street cyclists wanted: entry to imported upper-end bikes and bike gear. Components weren’t the one import, although. Regardless that town’s oldest bike store simply closed its doorways after 51 years in enterprise, Turin ignited a full of life tradition of street biking that’s nonetheless in style in Colorado right this moment.

From the start, Turin captured one thing in Colorado. It didn’t take lengthy for cyclists from throughout the West to flock to Turin’s first location at 711 Grant Avenue. “We began to tug away from the pack and weren’t simply that neighborhood bike retailer anymore,” Wonderful remembers. “We had been getting prospects from all over the place since you couldn’t get the merchandise we had.”

Turin Bicycles ultimately bought its personal single-story constructing on Lincoln Avenue in 1991, the place the store would spend the remainder of its days. Turin’s longtime involvement with the biking group—“We sponsored plenty of golf equipment and charity races through the years,” Wonderful says—attracted each loyal prospects and constant staff. Mike Stejskal, a supervisor at Turin Bicycles, was employed in 2000. “Half my life has been spent on this store,” he says.

However as different biking retailers got here to city and the web loomed giant, Turin’s aggressive benefit light. Then, in 2020, the pandemic and the ensuing provide chain challenges arrived. It began taking twice as lengthy—and will value twice as a lot—to get bike components manufactured in Europe and Asia to the cabinets, and the store merely wasn’t in a position to get its prospects what they wanted in time. “The pandemic created what we felt was changing into inevitable for some time,” Stejskal says.

Wonderful, Stejskal, and long-time supervisor Dave Wileden determined in early March to shut the store. On the shop’s remaining day, April 2, folks from throughout town got here to buy bike merchandise with significantly decreased costs.

David Wrap, a bicycle owner for Radio Free Denver Biking Membership, perused the shop on its remaining day. “I’ve been coming to Turin for 25 years,” he says. “It’s an establishment, and the closure goes to depart a void locally.” (San Francisco-based condominium developer Camel Companions bought Turin Bicycle’s Capitol Hill actual property, and plans on growing an 18-story condominium constructing rather than the historic bike store.)

Wonderful hopes that his bike store is remembered as an asset to the group and for offering worthwhile service. “I’m joyful for what I’ve accomplished, and I’m happy with what I’ve accomplished,” Wonderful says. “I’m additionally prepared to not have the accountability of it anymore.” He’s wanting ahead to spending retirement along with his spouse, Deb, at their residence in East Denver. Though he isn’t biking as a lot anymore, Wonderful nonetheless reads business magazines to get the newest information.

Stejskal and Wielden have determined to halt their plan to reopen a motorbike store for the following few months, although the pair nonetheless intend on opening a service-oriented bike store within the metropolis. “This expertise has definitely made me stronger,” Stejskal says. “I’m going to take a while off and really experience my bike as an alternative of occupied with it in the course of the night time.”